Barn House

Mary Ann Michna (whose Remembering James Dean was reviewed in our April 1992 issue) and Randy Starks, an AV librarian at the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library, have produced a charming piece of eccentricity in this short about Jim Pendleton's Barn House. Pendleton's creation is not your basic 3-bedroom split level on .25 acres: the Barn House, in Bowling Green, Indiana stands some 70 feet high, and boasts 41 rooms, 15 stairways, and 71 angles--in fact, Pendleton may have inadvertently invented a whole new architectural style: Country Cubism. Comprised of over 25 torn down barns, the Barn House has been a tourist attraction to some 14,335 folk in the past seven years, and even the site of two weddings. Pendleton, who owns another leak-proof house that doubles as an ark (he's ready in the event of a second major flash flood), is a rather bizarre character with a curious prurient streak: he confesses that he enjoys playing priest in the Barn House's confessional and listening to feminine litanies of sin; he also encourages visitors to use the sun deck--preferably sans clothing--and has even anointed one enclosure "the quickie room" where "a man and woman can do their business." But these slightly jolting and rather weird asides are incidental (as are Pendleton's ruminations on the UFOs and ghosts he's seen). His first and foremost love is obviously carpentering, and in the Barn House, he's created something of a classic. A low-budget yet quirky film, Barn House is recommended. (R. Pitman)